I looked around a Wright State message board that we got a few hits from (one of their fans found us and pointed it out) and here are some things being said.
My main concern is Gray — how do we stop somebody like that given our limited “big” men? get him into foul trouble? Deny him the ball? Control the tempo? Anyone with a better basketball sense than me can offer some insight here?
If the “What will Wright State do about Gray?” question isn’t the main storyline/focus for this game then I don’t know what is.
I personally like the match up with Pitt. Aaron Gray is prone to foul problems.
Gray in foul trouble aginst guards driving right at him will probably be their main plan. He sometimes fails to move his feet (and when he does it’s very slow) and instead he fouls to compensate.
Will Brad go small against Pitt? I think he should. Take the 7 footer out of the equation as much as possible. Let our shooters control the game and leave it in their hands. I think that is our best shot.
My response to this is, “Go ahead, let our seven-foot double-double machine have a 6′ 6” defender on him. Please, be my guest. No way Wright State shoots lights out enough to cancel out the 20+ points Gray would put up if WSU goes with a small lineup.
Man, I love ‘big’ schools. This is entertaining stuff. If you can’t go here and laugh, then life just isn’t fun.
I might as well be going to comedycentral.com. lol
If I were in this guy’s shoes I’d probably say the same thing. There’s always going to be some guy on a message board under some fake name like PittExpert12345 who says we’re tops in the nation when we play well and puts us out of the Top 25 after a loss.
There’s a thread that discusses the start time on Saturday, hoping that it’s not too early. Not one fan warning the others to not overlook us. Keep it up, Pitt.
Probably true enough.
With all of this NCAA tourney talk, let me take this time to remind you to sign up for the Pitt Blather Bracket Challenge.
(By the way, the title only took me about 2 hours to come up with.)
I’m still trying to figure this one out. What the hell is he talking about? The whole team is small. Unless they get some 6’9-7’0 walkons before thursday, they’re going small. They have ONE kid over 6’6, and he’s 6’8.
And where is this thread with discussion on the saturday time, without at least 1 person saying “don’t overlook thursday”? And I can assure you, even if any of us are thinking about Duke, I’m POSITIVE Dixon is watching Wright State tape right now. The people playing the game aren’t overlooking anybody as much as they’ve been embarassed the last 6 years, or they really are the dumbest people alive.
I guess you didn’t check the line up either. He will have a 6’6 defender on him the whole game. Unless the big 80 incher is on him…that’s 6’8.
A perfect example was Louisville last week. I’m sitting there watching the game and watching Dixon keep Gray on the bench for 17 freaking minutes. We were keeping the game relatively close, but with a few minutes left, I said they should put him back in. I didn’t want a few quick baskets to get us down by double digits at the half…and that’s EXACTLY what happened. Made shots by Louisville and missed shots by us put us down 11 at the half.
Granted, we came back to win. But will anyone on this board rest easy if we get down by 11 to ANY TEAM in the tournament?
If Dixon pulls that conservative crap this week, it could be lights out.
Um, uh, say what? When Louisville got those quick baskets before the half Dixon had stuck Gray back in the game for the last couple minutes — just as you said you wanted. Pitt had been down 5, up until that point.
Gray was stuck back in there to help on offense and had to sudiously avoid any contact on defense. That’s what Louisville took advantage of when Pitt missed.
if big baby can go for 26 and 12 vs them, i think aaron can double double them…..the team just needs to think of this as just another game in november/december……..